Relating the proton, neutron and deuteron structure functions in the covariant Bethe-Salpeter formalism

The neutron structure function F-2(n)(x) is evaluated within the kinematic range 10(-3) < x < 1 from the deuteron and proton data by employing relativistic theoretical description of F-2(D)(x) and several assumptions on the high-x asymptotics of F-2(n)(x)/F-2(p)(x)It is shown that new measurements of F-2(D)(x) in the range 0.6 < x less than or equal to 0.8 would substantially improve understanding of the relation between d and u valence quarks in the limit x --> 1. @ 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.